FYI Miami: November 10, 2016

Below are some of the FYIs in this week’s edition. The entire content of this week’s FYIs and Insider sections is available by subscription only. To subscribe click here.

POTENTIAL 85 NEW JOBS:County commissioners are to vote next week on local support of up to $102,000 over five years beginning in fiscal 2018-2019 for a confidential project as a qualified target industry (QTI) and existing business. The project, for which the Beacon Council has applied under the state’s QTI tax refund program, is a European-based producer/distributor of surfaces and materials used in commercial and residential architecture and design. When fully operational, the business promises to create 85 new full-time equivalent jobs paying an average of $66,100 with $6,000 in benefits and generate $33,019,055 in direct and indirect wages while the project is eligible for the award. The company aims to move its corporate headquarters from Sugar Land, TX, to Miami-Dade into a 23,000-square-foot site that would support distribution networks in the US and Canada. The company is also considering Texas.

STRINGS ON INCENTIVES: Companies that get state and county financial aid by creating jobs under the Qualified Target Industry program in Miami-Dade would have to hire county residents to fill at least 20% of those jobs under a proposal by Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz before the county’s Economic Prosperity Committee today (11/10). The state gives tax rebates that cover 80% of the program’s job-creation incentives and the county covers the other 20%. Those incentives are routinely help the county’s economic development group, the Beacon Council, to lure new businesses with high-paying jobs and encourage other companies to expand jobs here. Until now, the county has never set rules about where the persons who fill jobs within the county must reside.

COUNTER-TREND WAGE GAINS: As a 2.3% annual US growth in total employee compensation is nudging the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates, South Florida registered compensation gains of just 1.9%, reversing a trend in which the Miami area was racing ahead of US compensation gains, according to figures the US Bureau of Labor Statistics released last week. A year earlier, the national annual compensation gain was just 1.9% while South Florida’s was 2.7%. In just wages alone, the national gain in September was 2.4% versus 2.1% here, also reversing last year’s 2.1% national gain versus South Florida’s 2.6% wage increases.

JOB SKILLS GAPS: A Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce workshop will hear human resources officials from the One Community One Goal industries targeted for growth of higher-paid jobs explain to university representatives the skills gap their industries find in local graduates. The program is 9-11:30 a.m. Nov. 16 at the chamber, 1601 Biscayne Blvd. Advance registration is $35 for chamber members, $45 for others. Details: Danielle Bourgi, (305) 577-5464.